Pain au Chocolat

Had a bit of trouble with the dough. Perhaps overproofed them. Butter leaked. Do you know…they were still amazing?

Just made these, they were phenomenal. I folded the croissant dough one extra turn before rolling out after reading the comments on the other recipe. I just used bar chocolate broken into pieces and it worked great.

I wish I could reconcile a recipe like Claire's, which uses a strong bread flour, with the recipe by Cedric Grolet which uses T45 pastry flour. There is a huge difference between these flours. Grolet also has access to special dry butter ('beurre patissier' 'beurre de tourage') which is somewhat hard to find in the U.S. (still). Too much moisture in the butter makes the pastry rise too high, too fast and then the layers collapse.

I have made both the basic croissant recipe and this one now and in both cases, the most amazing results. Tear-inducing deliciousness. I used Trader Joe’s hot chocolate sticks in mine. They are a bit big on their own, but cut in half they are perfect - both in flavor, length, and price!

I may have rushed it, but cutting a bar of chocolate into batons turned into a crumbly mess, even when using a sharp knife and the scoring method described in the video. Easy enough to nestle the shards into the dough when forming, but next time will definitely be ordering batons online to avoid the hassle.

I have made this recipe 4 times and only once did I have anything less than ideal! I recommend weighing your ingredients and being careful about the heat of the oven for the proof.

One heck of a Memorial Day weekend baking project right here! Claire's video and written instructions were enough to make my very first at-home croissants a success. Never imagined I would be able to make these at home with such a tender interior crumb and exterior crunch-shatter. Of course, I'll still get the masterful versions from, say, Konbi and Tartine, this just makes me appreciate the pros even more. Thanks for helping me take these beauties over the finish line.

I am still intimidated by the croissant dough process, but I used these instructions to make pain au chocolat with quick puff pastry. There is a bulk food store in my town that sells the batons, so that is what I use for the chocolate. The pastry is not quite as delicate because it doesn’t rise as much, but they are relatively quick and still delicious!

For my first time, I’m very happy with how they came out. Probably will cut a little more narrow than 3” in the future because they are enormous. A reminder to be patient; I set mine in the oven with the skillet too soon and a lot of butter melted out. Trust the process, they look and taste great, and use good chocolate. I sprang for Belgian sticks (Amazon) and they taste like the real deal.

I just made these and they are delicious. I used dark chocolate chips instead of batons, they were rather large so I put 8/10 in each croissant. I baked on cookie sheets, don’t be like me, use rimmed sheets as there will be butter overflow. Overall, a great set of instructions and a fun weekend project!

Absolutely fabulous say all of my 'victims'. Better than any bakery said one. Clearly all the work is worth the wait for these pastries. Will willingly do it again just to provide a wee bit of joy during these troubling times.

Looks like I'm the first person to have baked these! The directions were very good for both this recipe and the dough. I started the proof in the humid oven but then took them out after an hour because I was nervous the butter was beginning to ooze out (so be careful of that). Either than that the croissants were perfect! Very flaky and they looked beautiful. Just like what you can get at the bakery.

Turned out great the first try! I did even longer cold rises in the refrigerator (because of work schedule) and didn’t seem to make a difference. Do not underestimate how much they’ll proof and expand in the oven; I only had one full baking sheet so I tried doing 7 on the sheet and 3 in a cake pan. Ended up having sides touching; all worked out though!